Gunshots rang out around 7:55 p.m., on Friday night, during the Indianola Academy playoff football game, as a result of an apparent drug deal gone bad at a nearby neighborhood home.
Police, responding to shots fired and an attempted armed robbery, found drugs, cash and an automatic weapon in the home of the alleged victim, Rendell Williams, a convicted felon, who is now also a wanted suspect.
They are now searching for Williams 25, and Tenesha Clark 24, both of whom are residents of 407 Park Ave.
Police confiscated $6,330.20 in cash and coins, a Draco 7.62 39mm assault rifle with a 30 round magazine and a large quantity of crack cocaine with a street value of at least $6,000, according to investigator Sgt. Standrick Hodges.
Indianola Police Chief Edrick Hall described the cocaine as freshly prepared.
“It was all shaped in the form of cookies, so they were preparing for distribution,” Hall said.
While on duty at Legion Field, Hall and school district chief Bo Hibbler, who is a part-time officer for the city, responded to what Hall said he believed to be gunfire,
“There was one single shot followed by about five or six shots,” Hall said.
He and Hibbler went to the area where they believed the shots came from, which happened to be the 400 block of Park Avenue.
Hall said once they reached the area they saw a man running who seemed to be disoriented and he told them someone tried to rob him at his home. Hall said Hibbler stayed with the man and he went to the house and Tenesha Clark, who identified herself as the man’s wife, showed up seconds later, frantic and saying that someone was holding her husband hostage in the house.
Hall said Clark told him there were video cameras around the house and she was viewing the incident remotely and her feed showed that her husband was a hostage in the home. At that point he called for more officers to join him and asked Clark for the keys to the home, which she said she didn’t have with her (she arrived as a passenger in a black SUV).
Hall said she gave him permission to forcefully go into the house and he and Hibbler searched for anyone who may be still there and during that time Hibbler spotted an assault rifle laying in plain sight on the bed. Once they were sure the house was clear, Hall said he stationed an officer at the door to prevent anyone else from going in.
Since Williams is a convicted felon, that prompted Hall to have investigators seek out a search warrant for his home and automobile to get the weapon they saw and any other potential illegal items.
When questioned, Williams allegedly told Hall that two men tried to attack him and force him into his home, pulled a gun on him and shot at him, but he got away. However the video from Clark’s phone told a different story, Hall said.
“Her video contradicted what he said,” Hall said.
Hall said it did depict two men attempting to force him to open the door, but Williams fired first and that set off an exchange of gunfire.
Williams and Clark left during the investigation.
Clark wasn’t held because she wasn’t home at the time and was not a suspect, and Williams fled paramedics while he was supposedly being treated for scratches he received in the struggle with the two men.
Hall said he refused treatment and ran.
Clark left and never came back after investigators handed her the search warrant and Hall added that it wasn’t until all of the evidence was collected that she became a suspect.
“It would be hard to dispute she knew that the narcotics, the money and the drugs was inside the house,” Hall said.
Hall wants to emphasize that the event was an isolated incident.
“It did bother the people in the neighborhood as well as the people attending the Indianola Academy football game, because it was an isolated incident. We are not expecting to have another incident like that for the Indianola Academy football game on Friday.”
Since the two are still on the run, Hall said he doesn’t expect them to return to their home but there will be extra officers in the area. Investigators are in the process of enhancing and reviewing the video footage from Friday night in order to identify the other suspects and feel as though taking Williams into custody will increase their chance of finding them since he likely knows them.
Even though drugs are involved, it is still also an attempted robbery Hall said, so they now have two different cases with two different investigators assigned, Sgt. Bennie Milton will be handling the robbery aspect.
Clark and Williams are the subjects of this week’s Most Wanted on page 10.
